Page 36 - Willi Distel Diary

End of the Boras chapter: the countryside, his Soedergren hosts, the Swedish winter light, and leaving across Sweden to Stockholm when the police would not wait. [needs a human eye]

Translated from Willi's German.

...brought me difficulties, for I would not allow Fraulein Marolius to go out with him. The countryside around Boras is very beautiful, wildly planted, with mountains and cliffs; magnificently situated is "Kukried", with its large lake. I lodged with old people named Soedergren, who were very kind to me. The father was not excessively strict, though one did sense a certain something about him. There was glorious Christmas weather. It is interesting how late the sun rises and how early it sets - from three o'clock in the afternoon it is winter night, right through until seven. When my notice had run out it was high time to go, for the police would not wait a single day longer. After a formal farewell the train carried me right across Sweden to the eastern side, to Stockholm. I experienced nothing noteworthy on the journey, nor was the country particularly charming. I never visited the club that existed in Boras; I did not think much of any of the Germans there. There were girls in Boras, to be sure, as in Auerbach. It was a textile town. I sorely missed the beer-houses and kissing-houses. It was, as I said, dead.

Interesting facts

Short Nordic winter days. Boras sits far enough north that midwinter daylight is very brief. Willi's remark that it is dark by 3 in the afternoon reflects the genuinely short Scandinavian winter day, not just gloomy weather.
Crossing Sweden to Stockholm. Boras is in the west near Gothenburg, while Stockholm is the capital on the Baltic coast to the east, so the train journey really does cut right across the country as he describes.
A textile town. Willi again calls Boras a textile town; the district around it was the heart of Sweden's cloth and ready-made clothing industry, which is why so much of the local life revolved around the mills.